


Carry Me Softly into the Darkness

by DoodlesOfTheMind



Category: Naruto
Genre: Bittersweet, Gen, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Shisui's spirit, breaking the curse of hatred, illusion/or is it, plea for redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 16:45:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1517825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoodlesOfTheMind/pseuds/DoodlesOfTheMind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shisui’s body flickered momentarily as the genjutsu faltered, and Itachi suddenly threw his arms around the boy’s neck. “Don’t leave me. Shisui, please, I can’t lose you again!”</p><p>“You never will,” Shisui said, and his body seemed to flare brightly in the darkness as Itachi took his last breath. “You never have.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carry Me Softly into the Darkness

Madara watched as Itachi freed Sasuke from Orochimaru’s taint and imparted the last of his strength into the younger boy. He had known for over a year that Itachi intended to let Sasuke kill him, and he hadn’t thought it would affect him so much when the day finally came. Now though, as Sasuke collapsed beside his brother, Madara felt a single drop of moisture fall from his eye. He wasn’t entirely sure why he did it, but he knelt beside Itachi, watching as his breathing became even more ragged and his heartbeat slowed.

“Itachi, look at me,” he commanded, but the younger man didn’t appear to hear him. “Itachi...” _I drove you to this. I could have prevented it. I should have..._ He couldn’t bring himself to say the words. Itachi had suffered so much for so long, and now his life was ending.

“Open your eyes,” he whispered, and he saw the pale lids flutter slightly. Heedless of the blood that dripped from those ruined charcoal orbs, Madara gently peeled the boy’s eyelids back for him. “Don’t die like this, little one. Look at me.”

Itachi’s dark eyes rolled up toward him, unfocused and lost. He probably didn’t even understand the words, obeying out of pure reflex like the perfect tool that the older man had shaped him to be. Another drop of warm wetness fell from Madara’s eye and shattered on Itachi’s cheek, and he drew the young man’s mind into the Tsukuyomi.

Instead of a shadowed red and black hell, the illusion took on the living colors of summertime at the edge of Konoha’s northern forests. Itachi’s body was no longer broken and waiting to die, but strong and healthy as Madara slashed his last, tenuous link to reality. This was the only gift he could give, a dream to ease him into the next world.

“Shisui,” Itachi breathed, staring up at the stocky sixteen-year-old form that Madara had shaped in front of him. “Shisui...”

“‘Tachi-kun,” Shisui’s voice murmured. “What are you doing on the ground, love?”

Tears welled up in Itachi’s eyes and he turned his face away.

“Stubborn little brat,” Shisui whispered, kneeling beside him. “Come here.”

There was a moment of poised stillness, and then Itachi fell into the boy’s waiting arms, his head automatically burying itself in Shisui’s collarbone as it so often had before. “Why are you...”

“Shh,” Shisui said gently. “Please, just let me hold you again. I’ve waited so _long_ , Itachi.”

Itachi relaxed into Shisui’s chest, silent tears streaming down his cheeks as the other boy’s hand gently undid the little crimson tie that restrained Itachi’s hair, running his fingers through the silken strands.

“You’re taller than me now,” Shisui said, smiling into Itachi’s hair. “I told you it would happen, though I never guessed it would be by quite this much. Now I suppose I’ll have to stand on my toes to kiss you, like you always needed to for me.”

Itachi let out a low sob and tried to pull away, but Shisui didn’t let him.

“No, ‘Tachi, don’t cry. Please don’t cry,” he murmured. “I’m here, now. If I’d thought for a moment that you would be so alone for ten years, that you would have to suffer like this... Can you ever forgive me?”

“You are not at fault,” Itachi choked out as the hand tangled in his hair kept his face against the other boy’s shirt. “I chose to involve you, to use you. I let you _die_ for _nothing_.”

“Shh,” Shisui said again, kissing Itachi’s temple. “You could hardly have stopped me. My life was yours from the day you were born. It was an honor to take care of you, to love you, to become the power behind your eyes. And now, I swear that I will never leave your side again. If...if you’ll have me?”

Itachi went limp as the illusion started to fray, and Madara fought to stabilize it, to keep Itachi’s heart beating just a moment longer. As the boy’s life slipped away, the colors of summer faded to darkness until all that was left was Shisui, his arms desperately clinging to Itachi’s pale, trembling body.

“And if you won’t, I’ll wait. I’ll watch over you from afar, and the day you call my name, I’ll come to you,” Shisui whispered fervently. “No matter how long that takes. And if you never do...that’s alright. I’ll understand.”

Shisui’s body flickered momentarily as the genjutsu faltered, and Itachi suddenly threw his arms around the boy’s neck. “Don’t leave me. Shisui, please, I can’t lose you again!”

“You never will,” Shisui said, and his body seemed to flare brightly in the darkness as Itachi took his last breath. “You never have.”

Madara let his chakra dissipate, bowing his head in reluctant respect to the boy that he had torn apart. The illusion had fed on Itachi’s memories with virtually no external direction, and Madara had never known that his young descendant carried so much sorrow in his heart for the boy who had given his life to grant Itachi the Mangekyo Sharingan. He should have, though. He should have seen it, and he should have stopped it in time.

“Forgive me, Itachi,” he said as the last threads of the Tsukuyomi left the young man’s cooling body. "For everything."

But the illusion didn’t fade. Instead, Shisui’s glowing form gathered Itachi in his arms and lifted him effortlessly. He clutched him protectively to his chest and turned a pair of seething Mangekyo eyes on the ancient Uchiha. “He likely already has, but I never will. If you come near him again, no matter how many lifetimes may pass, I will destroy you.”

The certainty in his voice made Madara shudder against his will, and the words fell from his lips, ringing like a binding oath: “I would let you.”

Shisui’s crimson eyes faded to a deep, peaceful gray as they fell on Itachi’s faraway face again. Without another glance to spare for the ancient man, he walked away, murmuring down into Itachi’s ears as he carried him into the night.

 

The darkness faded as the pair passed into the distance, and Madara came to in the rubble of the battlefield. His eyes swept the expanse of shattered stone peppered with blood and scorch marks, and they fell on a smaller, shivering form. Sasuke.

Despite the supposed fierceness of their battle, Itachi had left the boy almost entirely whole, with nothing more than severe chakra exhaustion, mild blood loss, and the agony of the awakening Mangekyo in the child’s mind.

“I destroyed your life, too, didn’t I?” Madara whispered in despair. “Your world ripped away with no explanation by the one you held most dear.”

Sasuke didn’t stir as Madara cautiously scooped him up, cradling him against his chestplate. He saw so many of the dead in this child’s face, so many lives casually toyed with, only to be cast aside for power, or ambition, or pride.

“For nothing,” he said quietly.

He turned his eyes skyward, questioning, and no bolt of lightning struck him down. That decided it. “I’ll look after him for you, Itachi. He will know that you were a hero of Konoha, and a true son of the Uchiha blood. He will know that you loved him above everything else in this world, purely, unselfishly, until the very end.”

The wind sighed around him, carrying both the scent of the peaceful ocean, and the charged electricity of a roiling storm.

“You will know how I used that love to break him, and you will be the one to pass judgement upon me,” Madara said to the child in his arms. He carried the boy into the smoking ruin of the old Uchiha fortress, to a darkened room that had not seen life in nearly a century. First, Sasuke needed to heal.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Shameless trolling for tears. Title remains tentative, AU reincarnation sequel being considered. Feedback is always loved.
> 
> In case it was unclear, my idea with this fic was that using the Tsukuyomi to bring peace or comfort to another is a way of breaking the cycle of hate and revenge, turning a tool for unbearable torture into something beautiful. It changes the one who uses it, freeing them to find a new path for themselves. But it also brings the illusion to life, allowing Shisui's actual spirit to connect with Itachi now that he's so close to the spirit world himself, though (of course) Shisui's been there for him since the moment his heart stopped.
> 
> Sappy, no?


End file.
